People today are usually required to interact with multiple applications to complete a task. Between using search engines, email, cell phones, social networks, etc., a growing amount of work has gone into the usage of these applications. Each application may perform its function well; nevertheless, one still needs to interact with several of these applications separately in order to complete a task. The disconnected nature of these applications has forced people to adapt to the current situation and form ad hoc connections between them, each with its own associated overhead. Inherently, as the applications multiply, so does the overhead.
These as-needed solutions are problem-centric and developed for specific needs, each with a narrow scope. The problem-centric approach also resulted in multiple solutions to the same problem with some functional variations in the solutions. Some of these are easily available and some are not available to general public and hence a limited number of people use the solution sets. These adaptations may be adequate at best but still do not provide a unified and comprehensive solution.
The following shows some of the common solutions for specific purposes:
Business or personal communications: Gmail, Outlook, Thunderbird, SMS
Social or professional networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Twitter, IM
Information Search Google, Bing, Yahoo, Dogpile
Voice communications: Landline Phones, Mobile phones, VoIP
E-commerce: Amazon, EBay, Drugstore, Etrade, Paypal, Google Checkout
Travel, Food, Entertainment: Expedia, Open Table, Disney, Rentalpro
Event management: Cvent, Regonline, Eventsoft, Ennect, Evite
Calendar & time management: Effexis, VIP, Manictime, Outlook, iCal
Wiki platforms: Povo.com, Wikipedia.com
Project management: Microsoft Project, Ace Project, Easy Projects, Wrike
Inventory management: Inflow, Advance Pro, Fishbowl
Resource management: VPMi, OpenAir
Usage of multiple applications may also need multiple accounts and passwords. These applications do not integrate seamlessly to provide combined benefit. A combination of these applications also leaves many gaps in accommodating a person's day-to-day tasks. In order to bridge these gaps higher level frameworks are built over existing solutions. For example, Web Services implementing the Service Oriented Architecture make functional building-blocks accessible over standard Internet protocols independent of platforms and programming languages. These services can represent either new applications or just wrappers around existing legacy systems to make them network-enabled. However, while these address some of the drawbacks and offer more flexible mechanisms, these frameworks also inherit most of the constraints and limitations imposed by the problem-centric approach.
For example, the following activities require use of multiple of the above applications and still have many gaps in the process:
Organizing a professional event—this requires identifying, notifying and registering participants, compiling the program activities, inviting and registering attendees, and following and managing the progress before, during and after the event.
Organizing a football tournament for schools within a state—this requires notifying students, forming teams and coaches, organizing practice sessions, scheduling games, tracking winning teams and constantly communicating with the people involved.
A physician starting a private practice in a new location—this requires finding a location, assembling staff, ordering furniture, material and equipment, advertising the practice, registering patients, scheduling appointments, tracking accounting and more.
Therefore, it would be beneficial if there is a people-centric system that adapts to the people's needs in performing day-to-day tasks as opposed to people adapting to the solutions developed around specific perceived problems. It would also be beneficial if such a system allows people to incrementally migrate to the system at their convenience.